DEVI EVER KITS

[Hypnodrone]

Sweet, I'll declare it finished then ;-)
I think the pre-gain pot is messing with the bias. I think I measured the voltage on the transistors but I might be confusing that with another build.

[Jwar]

For reference here's my Bit. I had trouble with the LED. OMG. I always wire LED's wrong. I could wire 50 in a row and still do it wrong. They are my nemesis. Haha. Got it working. It was a cold solder joint because my iron tip is fucked because I fucked it with overheating it. LOL

broken toothpick not part of the build.



Got a tiny bit sloppy with the LED connection there, but it's fine. I ran out of the right size heat shrink. Sigh



Aen and Louise will this be it for the kits? I had a blast doing these! I'd love a 4 knobber of anything if you're willing to do those. If not, totally cool.

They should all look like this.... I'd love a gold one with an ocarina on it though. To match the N64 Masters Edition copy

I missed this! Thanks for the compliment sir!!!

I could do a gold one pretty easy.

What would be bad ass is to get an actual brass enclosure and make it like this. But it would tarnish over time...look so good though.


Anyone else build anything????????? PICS????

[nuketifromorbit]

Just finished building my VFM and to no surprise I'm having difficulties. Good news is, that despite getting a constant stream of noise out of the pedal, its responding to the input signal. Basically, judging from my past experiences with devi's stuff, its as if the pedal is stuck in chaos mode. I've completely removed the chaos circuit/switch from the pcb and I'm still getting the same issue. I've also rechecked my wiring, and everything seems to be connected correctly. I'm wondering if I soldered one of my resistors to an incorrect position on the pcb. I'm noticing that my layout looks a bit different than a picture posted previously in the thread. Heres how mine currently looks.

[nuketifromorbit]

*edit
Just realized my mistake. I soldered the resistor that was supposed to go with the led to the pcb. I corrected the issue, and I managed to get the pedal working, but I've noticed that the pedal emits a constant hum if the tone knob is set at about 6 o'clock. It goes away though once you turn the knob a bit clockwise, and the pedal seems to work in a fashion similar to the sodamiser I used to own. Anyone else witness similar phenomena with their VFM? I could swear that the torns peaker I used to own did the same thing and it was built by Devi herself.

[aens_wife]

Put the circuit in the aluminum box. It currently isn't grounded : )

(please ignore if you have tested in the box too!)

If it is still making noise, check your solder joints to make sure all are solid and that there isn't any bits of solder where there shouldn't be.

[nuketifromorbit]

I've been testing the vfm in box. Luckily it turns out the 9volt wallwart I was using was causing the hum. I changed PSU's and the hum is now gone. The pedal goes silent though when I have the pregain knob turned all the way to the left. I'm guessing this is normal, since it does after all control pregain?

[aens_wife]

Yep, totally normal for it to be silent with the gain all the way down. Glad it was something easy : )

[moid]

Hi there

First post here; I found this forum looking for help with my Noise Floor kit. The Noise Floor is the third pedal I've tried to build, and it partially works I think, but not correctly (perhaps? Or maybe mine is even more chaotic than Devi Ever pedals usually are?). If I set both Volume and Gain to about 3PM, the pedal roars into life and is wondrously monstrous. Below that level it emits a constant stream of bleeps (no guitar sound) that I can vary in tone and frequency by adjusting the guitar's volume or the pots on the pedal. Which is kind of fun for a while. Past 3PM on both knobs and it goes back to bleeps again. Turning on the Soda Meiser switch will often increase the range of the sweep of the knobs that produces guitar sound, but usually mixed with constant bleeps. Turning on the Chaos switch is highly erratic - sometimes silence, sometimes gated noise, sometimes mixed with bleeps. My pdeal kind of wants to do techno - or a large truck reversing - it is confused

I noticed that if I put a booster pedal (Caline Orange Burst) or anything with extreme volume (DOD Death Metal Distortion) before the noise floor the range of usuable sweep of the knobs is increased, but I still get annoying bleeps throughout most of the sound I'm hearing - most audibly as the guitar notes fade out.

Things that may have gone wrong:

1. I built the pedal.

2. My kit was missing both pots so I bought some from a local shop, they were alpha 100K but have incredibly long shafts and are a stupidly tight fit against the switches. On the good side my pedal did come with eight screws for fastening the backplate of the enclosure, so win some, lose some?

3. I had to bend some of the capacitor legs so tha the capacitors lie almost flat against the circuit board to squeeze everything inside the enclosure.

4. I built the pedal.

If anyone has any guesses about what I should try to fix any of the above I'd be very grateful. Or alternatively if anyone can confirm that this is what the pedal is supposed to do, that would be fine as well. It doesn't sound anything like an amazing demo I heard on Youtube and I was hoping for a fuzz that makes unctrollable gated, spluttery noises. At the moment I found the bleeps quite useful for mixing into delays and flangers for a sort of crude analogue techno mess, but I really want my guitar to go ROAR not bleep (at least not this week anyway)

I've tried to post an image link so I hope it shows up:
hmmm that didn't work here's a link instead? http://i.imgur.com/zx1KKuz.jpg

Thanks

[KaosCill8r]

Looking at the pic I would say you have some shorts going on. Clean up some of the excess wire hanging out of your switches. Also check that top spdt switch. Is that long un insulated wire going to the middle pole touching the right side pole of the switch? If so stuff some insulating tape between them to stop it bridging.

[moid]

Thanks for replying, I will try that tomorrow morning and see what happens

[Jwar]

Mine sounds awful too and I built it the exact way the kit said. I almost wonder if there's an error in the directions? Is that possible? Mine is TOTALLY unusable. Randomly changes tones and gradually pulls your clean tone out. Very, very odd.

[aens_wife]

It should sound exactly like a soda meiser with both toggles in the off position. If it sounds different than that, then something is wrong with the build. We have double checked all the instructions, so that isn't the issue.

In that picture about, I'd touch up all of the connections and trim all wires as short as you can. I can see a few solder joints that look questionable for sure and some wire that looks to be touching things it shouldn't be.

Also, for anyone missing parts, please reach out to us. I will always ship them out at no cost.

[Jwar]

Louise,

Perhaps it was an error in the way I read the directions then. LOL. The reason I said it could be an instruction error is because it happens sometimes (at least I've seen it happen). No offense was meant. I know building even the easiest kits can be trying from time to time. haha. I built mine more for fun than anything. Now the Bit I built came out PERFECT and sounded amazing! First time every I didn't have to tweak something in a kit.

Re missing parts. I was missing a pot but I had extras so I didn't care. Love what you two do!

[moid]

Thanks to KaosCill8r and aens_wife for their suggestions. I resoldered the dodgy connections, trimmed the random bits of wire and also noticed that I had not connected the Chaos switch up correctly (although it did seem to behave chaotically, so who knows?). The end result is that the bleeps have now gone... to be replaced with odd clicking noises if I just run the guitar straight into the pedal and then to the amp. Adjusting the knobs occasionally brings in bits of guitar as it did before. If I put a booster between the guitar and the noise floor and crank it to the maximum the pedal is suddenly awesome across the entire sweep of the knobs and the clicks (mostly) go away (they re-appear if the Pre Gain is set low sometimes)... I can now dial in random splattery fuzz and near oscillation feedback with the EQ on the booster set correctly. So I guess the pedal works, but only if the signal going into it is 26dB louder than normal. Jwar have you tried putting a booster inbetween the guitar and noise floor and see if that works?

I'm very new to pedal building so I did some looking for other ideas and one suggestion I read elsewhere was that the transistors might be the wrong way around (mine follow the diagram on the circuit board) and that would cause the pedal to do very little until volume had reached a certain threshhold. I read somewhere that the transistor types look very similar but the order that their legs are connected in can be different and I wonder if this is the issue? Pure guesswork here; I know zilch about electronics so feel free to correct me.

I really am very glad of the quick responses, thanks very much - I was wondering whether a noob on the forum would be ignored but you've made my day

@aens_wife - I will find the contact details and email you about the pots, thanks for suggesting that, I just didn't want you guys to pay for shipping that lot to the UK (and I was desperately keen to make the pedal - we had a bank holiday weekend in the UK and I finally had some time off work). Hmmm mind you maybe I could build something else with the extra pots?

Sorry one more question for aens_wife - is there any chance there would ever be a Destructo Noctavia kit? I'd love to build one of those and compare it to the Noise Floor.

[KaosCill8r]

Thanks to KaosCill8r and aens_wife for their suggestions. I resoldered the dodgy connections, trimmed the random bits of wire and also noticed that I had not connected the Chaos switch up correctly (although it did seem to behave chaotically, so who knows?). The end result is that the bleeps have now gone... to be replaced with odd clicking noises if I just run the guitar straight into the pedal and then to the amp. Adjusting the knobs occasionally brings in bits of guitar as it did before. If I put a booster between the guitar and the noise floor and crank it to the maximum the pedal is suddenly awesome across the entire sweep of the knobs and the clicks (mostly) go away (they re-appear if the Pre Gain is set low sometimes)... I can now dial in random splattery fuzz and near oscillation feedback with the EQ on the booster set correctly. So I guess the pedal works, but only if the signal going into it is 26dB louder than normal. Jwar have you tried putting a booster inbetween the guitar and noise floor and see if that works?

I'm very new to pedal building so I did some looking for other ideas and one suggestion I read elsewhere was that the transistors might be the wrong way around (mine follow the diagram on the circuit board) and that would cause the pedal to do very little until volume had reached a certain threshhold. I read somewhere that the transistor types look very similar but the order that their legs are connected in can be different and I wonder if this is the issue? Pure guesswork here; I know zilch about electronics so feel free to correct me.

I really am very glad of the quick responses, thanks very much - I was wondering whether a noob on the forum would be ignored but you've made my day

@aens_wife - I will find the contact details and email you about the pots, thanks for suggesting that, I just didn't want you guys to pay for shipping that lot to the UK (and I was desperately keen to make the pedal - we had a bank holiday weekend in the UK and I finally had some time off work). Hmmm mind you maybe I could build something else with the extra pots?

Sorry one more question for aens_wife - is there any chance there would ever be a Destructo Noctavia kit? I'd love to build one of those and compare it to the Noise Floor.

No worries Moid.
It might also help if you got a magnifying glass and check your soldering on the pcb for solder bridges. One tiny little bridge can cause all sorts of grief. Also check your grounding connections? A weak ground connection can cause some oscillating. See if that helps